Monday, July 16, 2018

The Incredibles 2

By my reckoning, "The Incredibles" is Pixar's best film, which is a pretty high bar to clear. So it's fair to say that I was rather looking forward to the sequel - after ten years away, what could they have cooked up for us?

Well, it turns out that "The Incredibles 2" is good, but not great. And the more I reflect on it, the weaker it seems in hindsight. All the same elements are there, but the whole just doesn't live up to the hopes.

Warning: there are major spoilers from here on. So if you don't want to know, skip down to the end of the post, where I update the list of books I've read recently.

And the reason why it doesn't quite work? All the same elements are there, doing pretty much exactly the same thing (only this time it's Elastigirl who is off doing superhero stuff while Mr Incredible stays with the kids) - the secret superhero missions, the family drama, the tension between Supers wanting to use their powers while that is illegal.

And a villain who is not themselves super-powered but who makes use of high technology to match up against the Supers, having become embittered by a past experience. Oh, and that character initially presents as a benign figure, indeed employing our hero for her secret superhero missions.

So it's basically the same film, albeit with Mr Incredible and Elastigirl having their roles (and an oh-so-hilarious venture into "aren't men just useless?" territory to boot).

Basically, it's fine, good even, but I'm finding it increasingly hard to think of a reason to recommend seeing "Incredibles 2" rather than just watching to original again. Which is a shame.

But the music is great, so there's that!

#31: "The Jesus Storybook Bible", by Sally Lloyd-Jones (a book for Funsize)
#32: "Pathfinder: City in the Lion's Eye", by Mikko Kallio

1 comment:

Kezzie said...

The whole 'Aren't men useless thing' actually makes me really cross. A) because it isn't true but worse b) there is a whole generation of men who aren't as intelligent as category a) or indeed quite like the idea that this is a nice excuse for indolence who somehow believe that they ARE indeed useless and thus it is a self-fulfilling prophecy!